Jelly, the world’s smallest LTE and Nougat smartphone, reaches Kickstarter goal in under an hour

Jelly, the world’s smallest LTE and Nougat smartphone, reaches Kickstarter goal in under an hour

by ADRIAN DIACONESCUMAY 3, 2017 7:00 AM

Unihertz

In a day and age when 4.6-inch handhelds
are explicitly marketed as “compact” and diminutive, with LG even reportedly
prepping a 5.4-inch (slim-bezeled) G6 mini, it takes a whole lot of courage,
almost bordering on insanity, to set a $30,000 Kickstarter goal for the world’s
smallest 4G smartphone.

But believe it or not, Unihertz, the little
known Shanghai-based company behind the 2.45-inch (!!!) Jelly, has managed to
raise an expectation-crushing $124K (and counting) within less than 24 hours of
its crowdfunding campaign’s launch.

In fact, it only took 57 minutes for the
$30K necessary to make this quirky project a reality to be pledged, and there
are already close to 1,500 backers eager to get their hands on the Liliputian
Android device starting this August.

So, what’s so hot about Jelly? Its size,
mainly, but also LTE support, the promise of Nougat software offered right out
of the box, as well as a price point fitting that super-small screen.
Unfortunately, if you’re just finding out about this now, you’ve missed both
the “Super Early Bird” and “Early Bird” tiers of the Jelly Pro, plus the
standard version’s former entry-level fee.

Admit it, it’s an enticing backup phone
proposition for activities, situations and use cases when a “large, expensive
and delicate smartphone is impractical.” And it’s set to run Android 7.0, don’t
forget.